Thursday, July 5, 2012

Honorary Leader for a few Days

Fucking Great. I have to manage three teams of these bozos, work closely with fucking NIGHTSCREAM, head the interrogation of Lu Bu, and keep Morningstar from running off to go drown himself.

Anyone remember when I used to just be "That creepy clown guy with the chainsaws"? It was so much simpler back then. Granted, we were doing much crazier shit than we do now. Morningstar was Valtiel's attack dog back then. The Leadership must have liked Valtiel or something, because they didn't swamp us with paperwork like they do now. Good fuckity God, I remember bitching about Morgan never doing anything, but now I know why. So. Much. Paperwork. Mission Reports, Mission Status updates, Squad Status Updates... No wonder Morningstar seems so tired all the time. This kind of work just sucks the energy right outta ya. I don't see us getting the funding we need for like... Killdozers and shit though. What with being associated with Nightscream AND Redlight. Neither of whom the Highers particularly like.

In other news, Morningstar has escaped from being tied to a fucking chair in a locked room exactly 15 times now. Scrambler has been knocked out 6 times, and some of Nightscream's intelligence gathering buddies have volunteered to make sure Morningstar doesn't break out again. Which would be bad. Still got around a week for him to recover. Which means a weeks worth of paperwork for me to fill out for him. I don't get paid enough for this. I get paid to kill people, preferably fucking brats. Not goddamn office drone work. Do I look like an accountant to you? Any of you? Didn't think so.

Also gotta keep track of Lu Bu's torture interrogation sessions. The old fashioned way isn't working very well and he keeps screaming about a "Rematch" and how we "Fear his might" and so on and so forth. Guy's got a hell of a set of lungs on him. Once we get what we need from him, I might cut em out and... Do something with them. Boss Man would know what do with a set of lungs, but he hasn't been in a chatty mood lately. Except to beg us for just a sip of the Fear Ichor. Which we can't do, because we drained the fucking pond already. So I hear anyway. Didn't feel like risking another zombie attack.

The ironic thing is, Morningstar looks closer to what he used to look like now more than ever. His eyes changed color overnight to this... Dull Blue. Skin's got paler too, albeit kind of blueish. He looks like a drowned guy. Which is creepy when you see him fucking staring off into space like he's fucking dead, only to snap up and begin ranting and raving about voices in the water calling to him. How much of that shit did he drink anyway? Probably going to take off one of Lu Bu's fingers for every day Morningstar spends like this, the fucking asshole...

In other news, I am supposed to report the success of Caesar's team against a group of Runners. No casualties again, courtesy of Pacemaker being competent. And once again, the cleanup teams have been bitching at us for being overly messy. I issued a stern mention-my-irritation-at-being-bothered-with-this to Blood Harvest, and left it at that. When you have an scarecrow with a scythe, a drunk pirate, a roman dictator, a plumber, and a clumsy knight on a team, things will get VERY messy. Oh well. At least Mordred is more effective than Angmar ever was. I miss Darkhorse and Baron Samedi though. Professionals through and through, not to mention fairly pleasant company. May they rest in peace, and may Elaine rot in hell.

But enough of my rambling. I have missions to plan for the next... Five-Six days or so. That's how long it takes for the Ichor to leave your system, according to the handy-dandy guidebook to Fears. We'll be back once we break Lu Bu and accomplish our Mission.

Yes, you get all the disadvantages of a boring office job, without benefits unless you count the chance to be involved in dangerous situations. And to top it all off, you can't quit. That's plenty horrifying.

As much as it pains me to say this: Judas has a point. You guys are in the service of a bonafide Eldritch Abomination, and you function like a bureaucracy? I mean, I guess there's sort of a connection in an "order from chaos" kind of way, but still... are you SURE your fat boss works for your skinny boss?

Given that fuckers like Redlight and Valtiel are running around helping the bureaucracy, I would say. Yes, I am sure the fat guys are working for The Slender one. Personally though... I don't think that our great God gives a damn about the chain of command we made up. We're all just... Pieces on his chessboard. A nonsensical chessboard with rules we could never comprehend. The Organization, the order, exists for the sake of us puny humans.

Of course we have a bureaucracy. How do you think our side pays for everything? Bullets don't grow on trees. And even with the government covering up most of our activities, we still need to grease a few palms to make sure local police departments don't get too involved (especially considering what happened the last time a lone detective decided to start messing in the Boss's business....) Plus there's the cost of tracking Runners, disposing the bodies, etc. etc. etc....

And that's not even including living expenses. Just because we changed sides doesn't mean we stopped needing to eat. Or pay the electricity bill we get from spending hours on Blogger. While there are some of us who manage to juggle a regular job with their proxy work, the majority of our people have no source of income coming in, and it's kinda hard to torment Runners when we're all weaponless and starving to death out on the streets. Hell, why do you think we even have cult towns? Yeah, yadda yadda, centers of worship for the Boss, offering Him sacrifices, blah blah and so on, but one of the biggest reasons? Cult towns pay for a helluva lot of our expenses.

Oh. Oh. I See. I fucking see. Just because I'm a clown and I fucking kill people, I'm a ripoff of Pennywise the FUCKING Clown. YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT SHITTY STEPHEN KING ANTICLIMACTIC DISGRACE TO ALL CLOWNS USE A FUCKING CHAINSAW, DID YOU??!?! LISTEN HERE SHITHEAD, I AM NOT AND WILL NEVER BE A PENNYWISE THE FUCKING SPIDER RIPOFF. I AM NOTHING LIKE IT, AND PROUD OF IT. I MADE KIDS LAUGH ONCE UPON A TIME. LAUGH. THEY LOVED ME. AND I HATED THEM. BUT I NEVER ATE THEM OR TURNED INTO A FAKE RUBBER SPIDER THING WITH GOOGLY EYES YOU PIECE OF SHIT. I WILL FORCE FEED YOU A CYANIDE PIE WITH A CRUST OF RUSTY FUCKING NAILS YOU SMUG, STEREOTYPING JACKASS!!!!!!!!

It's a guilty pleasure, what can I say. I mean, who doesn't like Tim Curry? Still. NOT EVERY CLOWN IS RIPPING GODDAMN PENNYWISE! I have been accused of that SO GOD DAMN MANY TIMES.

Force Feeding jackass. You wouldn't be spitting anything up except blood. Of course, if that fails I could just shoot ya. Burn down the house you're in. Dynamite in the vehicle. Jack in the Box Gun. Or just stab you to death. Really there's a lot of ways we could kill you. Incidentally. Who the hell are you?

Because you still aren't scary. I mean, I've met scary people. Tom O'Bedlam, he could be scary. Because he would just sit there with this shit-eating grin and stare at you and he wouldn't say a word all day. That was scary.

But you? You just yap and yap and yap and nothing turns off the scares more than a talker. Blah blah look at me blah blah I'm so scary blah blah. And chainsaws? Um, do you also walk around with jugs of gasoline, because those things run out fast - this isn't like the Evil fucking Dead. This is the real world.

And if you don't like being called a Pennywise ripoff, can I call you a Krusty the Clown ripoff?

... You know. I actually DO like that one better. I admit though, it is kinda refreshing to have someone NOT be immediately terrified of the whole clown thing. Fucking assholes everywhere and their irrational fears... And yes. We keep Gasoline in the Van. Along with backup weapons. We aren't stupid.

Clowns scare children and for good reason: they aren't used to seeing something that looks almost human. They see a face painted with white makeup, they freak the fuck out.

Now, runners and proxies? Almost human, deathly white face? That's our fucking raison d'être right there. So why be scared of clowns when there's a fucking faceless abomination out to get you? Makes no sense.

That's the thing. It isn't always... Hell... It isn't USUALLY kids who freak the fuck out. I mean, Hell. Morningstar nearly shat his pants the first time he saw me. A goddamn psycho killer is afraid of Clowns. I dunno... Maybe you are one of the few without coulrophobia. The Big man is much scarier than I am, and you would THINK most of these assholes would be desensitized to fear. But no. Most freak the fuck out at the sight of an ENTERTAINER. I used to make BALLOON ANIMALS for a living dammit.

I kind of want to say that it's due to memories of loss of innocence - that we always are afraid of the thing that we were first scared of as children, that due to people like John Wayne Gacy, clowns became subjectively scarier and more creepy until they had entered the collective unconscious as something that scares everyone.

But, of course, that's all bullshit. The real reason is fuck if I know.